Ten years after the passing of Pino Daniele, Naples continues to vibrate on the frequencies of his “music of feeling.”
From this lingering echo emerges the photographic series Among the Thousand Colors of Naples, a project that abandons the rigor of documentary realism to embrace a dreamlike, almost Impressionist dimension of the city.
Inspiration: Beyond the Melody. The title is a direct reference to Napule è, the manifesto song that reshaped the visual and sonic identity of the metropolis. Yet while Pino Daniele’s song thrives on contrasts between “the scent of the sea” and “the voices of children,” these images seek to capture the light that binds those opposites together.
The work does not aim merely to portray places, but to photograph atmosphere: that chromatic density one feels while walking through the Spanish Quarters or gazing at the silhouette of Vesuvius from the harbor.
In his photographs, Francesco Mercadante seems to issue an unprecedented warning to all seekers of beauty: to those who wander, never fully satisfied, through the marvelous places that dot the Bel Paese, always in search of something new and magnificent, an element capable of surprising them anew, whether it belongs to the realm of living beings or to objects born of human ingenuity, like art itself. An art with which the images of the Calabrian photographer are filled, saturated, and in some cases overflowing. His vision is almost dreamlike, a different and original way of observing objects, streets, and people around him, one that culminates, for the viewer, in a joyful transfiguration, what might be called an epiphany of the soul.
This is also true, though in a distant and complementary way compared to his previous series, of his new project Tra i mille colori di Napoli, which he dedicates to the great songwriter Pino Daniele. An extraordinary guitarist and one of the musicians who most radically reshaped Italian pop music, Daniele captured the ear of the young Mercadante, then nine years old, with the song Napule è. As often happens when age is still tender and the heart free of conditioning, music and lyrics left a deep mark on young Francesco, who fell in love with melodies capable of carrying him “into a world of colors, as if they were confetti falling from the sky.”
Without the awareness that would come later in adulthood, Mercadante traced a multiplicity of signs that would constantly return in his work. What emerges once again in this new body of images is the idea of projection, of who we are. Dream transfigures reality, breaking into our daily lives through forms of change and transformation, turning the things that fill our existence into something else, though always within a familiar visual language. “Reality is an image of our soul; true reality lies within us,” Mercadante himself says, overturning the idea of a single, absolute reality.
How, then, does the artist represent the world and the animate and inanimate beings that inhabit it? Through a highly personal photographic technique that restores to viewers a universe of emotions often lost, ready to be awakened by a red or yellow glow. A playful, colorful universe that, with Il colore della gente and L’estate liquida, has become the artist’s unmistakable signature and that we also encounter in this recent project on Naples.
It is an emotional journey through music and words, initially sparked by listening to the famous song by the Neapolitan songwriter and later retraced while walking through the neighborhoods of Naples, finally portrayed in the Calabrian photographer’s liquid images. Mercadante’s writing with light has relied, more than in other works, on music, a habitual source of inspiration for his images, here elevated to the level of a tribute to Naples and to one of its greatest interpreters.
A music rooted in different traditions, though Mediterranean for both, yet clearly united by a shared sensibility, one that paved the way for the then very young photographer toward future and promising listening paths. Mercadante learned to love blues, jazz, and soul, his favorite genre, but it is that song, Napule è, that settled in his heart and continues to vibrate within him, exerting a hypnotic pull years later. As an adult, he feels it in the city’s alleyways, in its hidden corners, or at the feet of monuments celebrated by tourists: the Maschio Angioino, Piazza Plebiscito, the Royal Pontifical Basilica of San Francesco di Paola, Via Toledo, and San Gregorio Armeno, all the way to breathing in the sea and the spirit of its people.
Details that tell stories Mercadante has captured, reflecting their secrets in his fluid photographs, drenched in sunlight, in the dense light of morning, with the spirit of a child discovering life as it unfolds and the character of its people. There is much to see, of course, within and beyond the liquid contours of a Naples balanced between past and future, but above all, the photographer invites us to feel it, to sense its scents, released by its vivid, blazing nuances like tears of joy, childhood memories.
The alphabet of light used by the photographer recalls the literary one of a fellow Calabrian, Sonia Serazzi, born in Naples but raised in a small town in Calabria. Vivid, composed of figures and sounds from an undefined landscape where childhood, freedom of spirit, and fullness of feeling blend together. That very kind of creativity that, let us never forget, inspired the birth of the Impressionist movement.
About Francesco Mercadante
Born in 1968 in Cutro, Calabria, and currently based in Reggio Emilia, Francesco Mercadante is a photographer whose practice merges a background in restoration and interior decoration with a distinctly painterly photographic language. His interest in photography began at an early age, when a Kodak Instamatic and a blue bicycle, given to him by his father, became tools for exploration and observation in the rural landscape of Calabria.
Mercadante’s work is driven by a persistent investigation into the substance of the image. His early experience with earth pigments, oxides, and manual painting techniques later translated into photography, shaping a tactile and immediately recognizable visual approach. Deliberately distancing himself from digital precision, he works with handcrafted frosted glass filters placed directly in front of the lens.
The photographic process becomes a controlled and physical act. By manually rotating the filter, Mercadante alters perception, allowing urban scenes to dissolve into fields of color and light. His images emerge at the intersection where light, movement, and the irregular surface of the glass transform figures and architecture into fluid chromatic compositions.
This approach found a consolidated form in 2024 with the solo exhibition Il colore della gente at Arcus Art Gallery Lab in Reggio Emilia, accompanied by a monographic publication released by Corsiero Editore.
Mercadante’s work has been widely recognized at an international level, with references often drawn to the chromatic dynamism of Ernst Haas and the visual transparency associated with Saul Leiter. His photographs have been selected by Vogue Italia and published in Marie Claire.
In 2024, his practice received further institutional acknowledgment. Following exhibitions in significant Italian venues, including the Chamber of Deputies and the Maschio Angioino, he was awarded the Biennale Art and Culture Prize at the Matera Art Festival, under the patronage of the International Academy of the Dioscuri.
The year 2025 marked a consolidation of his relationship with Sofi Gallery RT Bergamo, which now represents him. Two solo exhibitions were presented: Tra i mille colori di Napoli in February, and Through Me: Four Visions of Light and Landscape, bringing together four unpublished bodies of work: Maestà selvaggia, L’inverno dell’anima, La danza degli aquiloni, and Un sogno chiamato costiera. His international presence expanded further through participation in Artexpo New York and Frieze New York. Invited by the International Academy of the Dioscuri, he also exhibited Through the Glass: Weavings of Liquid Love at the Royal Palace of Caserta.
In 2026, at the invitation of the cultural association Art Global, Mercadante presented Eternal Sunset at the Giovanni Spadolini Library of the Italian Senate in Rome.
Later in 2026, he will present his first solo exhibition in the United States. Hosted by Sofy Gallery New York, from April 3 to April 18 at 153 10th Avenue, the exhibition will focus on Maestà selvaggia and will be accompanied by critical analysis by art historian Professor Francesco Mazzeo Gallo. [Official Website]
